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Chaucer and language : essays in honour of Douglas Wurtele / edited by Robert Myles and David Williams.
- Format:
- Book
- Author/Creator:
- Myles, Robert, Author.
- Language:
- English
- Subjects (All):
- Chaucer, Geoffrey, -1400--Knowledge--Language and languages.
- Chaucer, Geoffrey.
- Chaucer, Geoffrey, -1400--Symbolism.
- Chaucer, Geoffrey, -1400--Language.
- English language--Middle English, 1100-1500--Semantics.
- English language.
- Semiotics and literature--England--History--To 1500.
- Semiotics and literature.
- Signs and symbols--England--History--To 1500.
- Signs and symbols.
- Symbolism in literature.
- Physical Description:
- 1 online resource (273 p.)
- Place of Publication:
- Montreal ; Ithaca [N.Y.] : McGill-Queen's University Press, c2001.
- Language Note:
- English
- Summary:
- Every poet arrives at some sense of how language works. Chaucer's engagement, like that of the greatest literary figures, goes beyond the brilliant, skilful use of language as a tool of expression, beyond what we usually call "talent." He brings to the creative use of signification a sophisticated philosophical questioning of the very nature of language, of how we know and how we signify. Chaucer and Language argues that Chaucer's work points to answers to these questions, emphasizing that in various ways Chaucer made language itself the subject of his writing. The polyvalent nature of signs and the ambiguity this makes possible are discussed as one aspect of Chaucer's use of language as subject, as is irony. Chaucer's extension of the concept of language to include relics and the Eucharist, his exploitation of equivocation and the lie, and the semiotic dimensions of his poetic themes are also treated. These issues derive directly from the long tradition of mediaeval sign theory and anticipate the major issues of the modern theory of signs that is semantics.
- Contents:
- ""Contents""; ""Preface: A Life in Progress""; ""Acknowledgments""; ""Introduction""; ""Chaucer and Character: The Heresies of Douglas Wurtele""; ""“Withouten oother compaignye in youthe�: Verbal and Moral Ambiguity in the General Prologue Portrait of the Wife of Bath""; ""The Wife of Bath and “Speche Daungerous�""; ""The Franklin, Epicurus, and the Play of Values""; ""Mapping a History of Sexuality in Melibee""; ""Chaucer after the Linguistic Turn: Memory, History, and Fiction in the Link to Melibee""; ""Chaucer�s Clerk, on the Level?""
- ""Confusing Signs: The Semiotic Point of View in the Clerk�s Tale""""Sense, Reference, and Wisdom in the Merchant�s Tale""; ""“ Lo how I vanysshe�: The Pardoner�s War against Signs""; ""Notes""; ""Appendix: Published Writings of Douglas Wurtele""; ""Works Cited""; ""Index""
- Notes:
- Description based upon print version of record.
- Includes bibliographical references (p. [223]-245) and index.
- ISBN:
- 1-282-85931-5
- 9786612859311
- 0-7735-6920-0
- OCLC:
- 929120632
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